I am a geologist, and the answer to this issue is not tectonics. For the last 50 million years the Indian plate has been ramming below the Eurasian plate at a rate of a few centimeters a year. This continues today, and the whole Tibetan plateau is still rising, including Mt. Everest. The issue is not with the solid rock of the region, but rather with frozen water in the valleys of these mountains in glaciers. This article is hinting at the fact that the elevation that can get above the freezing point of water has risen near the mountain in the recent past. This leaves flowing water at higher points of the mountain to erode rock little by little.
No one knows for sure about global warming, I know I don't. The trend in the literature in the past few years has become overwhelmingly in favor of the warming trend. Fact: the Earth IS in a warming trend right now. The dispute is over how much humans are influencing this trend.
Science is something that needs to looked at objectively. I wish everyone can do this, but the U.S. is not an overall scientifically literate nation. That's just the way it goes, there are enough folks out there who just don't care about science, and that is quite understandable. How the arguement of global warming has taken political sides is absurd, why are the proponents of the theory considered mainly liberal? Why are those against it mainly conservative? Shouldnt be that way. Before anyone takes a stand on EITHER side, please read journal entries and any other published literature that will really give valuable insight to the processes at work in global warming. You may be wondering: 'Well, I don't even understand, how CAN the Earth be warming?' or "What happens in Earth's systems that can cause the warming?" These questions will be answered by reading valid literature on the subject. When it comes to scientific issues, only informed opinions have any validity. One cannot simply say, "Global warming is false." or "Global warming is true." There needs to be real reasons and process that you can explain to people about how you arrived at your opinion.
I have one model: Venus. With a dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide, surface temperatures reach 850F+. The carbon dioxide induces the 'greenhouse effect', which is a factual phenomenon.
It's empirically observable that the glaciers are melting.
For example, older photos of Everest clearly show the Khumbu Glacier spewing snow and ice for many miles south of Everest itself, not quite to Lobuche but far enough to show a difference. Now that glacier is mostly covered with dirt, rocks, and debris, not snow almost immediately after leaving the Icefall.
Also the Khumbu Icefall has pulled back many hundreds of meters, according to mountaineers who've been there over the years (a simple viewing of the Hillary expedition films also shows this to be true).
Clearly something is happening to melt the glacier, and it's not atmospheric cooling.
But in lieu of an accurate 10,000 year temperature sampling, I don't think any of this is caused by the puny and microscopic human race.
Our atmosphere is 78% Nirtogen, 21% Oxygen, 1% argon and 0.1% a combination Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and other gases. Humans are incapable of producing enough Carbon Dioxide to perceptibly change the composition of our atmosphere.